One of my "naiveties" was to believe others' post-hoc explanations of their success or failure. People usually overestimate their own impact or effectiveness in influencing their life, and that's probably a good misperception to have in order to "take control" or "be proactive", good attitudes to life. But it's a mistake to carry this bias over to interpreting other people's life. Life is usually too complex to figure out from the outside what went down and what was the kicker. Many times, I figure, people themselves don't know much about what ultimately determined their life outcome. I'm not exactly sure what conclusion to draw from this. But just be careful in mimicking other people, or even asking questions like this. It's only superficially smart. The best ways to learn from others may be to read literature or poetry, i.e. to learn from fictive others; good writers are not good writers because they write well but because of their perceptive power.
